Recent Posts

Kellan Parham

Wow, I guess everyone forgot about Christmas this year. I’ve been very busy with gift caricatures, both private and corporate for a few months now. But last week I got SLAMMED with orders. And they all were willing to pay Rush and Double Rush fees to get them this week. Profitable, but more than a wee bit exhausting. It’s a good problem to have though…. that’s for sure. And I get paid to draw! Life is good. Anyway, here’s one of the ones from this week that I liked. The setting they requested was the Ralph Lauren Restaurant in Chicago:

I haven’t had but a few requests for large Super Hero themed group caricatures over the years. Which brings up the obvious question…. WHY NOT?!? Seriously, this was a ton of fun to do. And since the client requested that no “real” superhero costumes be depicted, because of copyrights and trademarks, I had to come up with costumes that were “homages” to existing characters. Which actually made it more fun! See if you can pick out all of the references!

By the amount of hits I received on this blog yesterday, it looks like a LOT of people have been doing what I did… waiting to hear how someone ELSE likes the new Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus before they buy it themselves. ( I figured I had to say the entire name at least once in this post, and that was it! ). Today’s post is just a quick continuation to yesterday’s, to answer a few questions people have emailed me, messaged me, or asked me on some private forums I’m a member of.

First off, see that little tiny blue light in this photo? It tells you the stylus is “on”, and then it blinks as the Intuos is connecting to your iPad via Bluetooth. Yes, this is a Bluetooth device. I am not a huge fan of that, but it is MUCH better than the ultrasound pressure sensitivity styluses out there ( hello, JaJa Hex 3…. I’m talking about you….).My biggest problem with Bluetooth? Having other Bluetooth devices around you at the same time.

Case in point- when I and another artist were drawing iPad caricatures live at an event a few months ago, we were both using our Pogo Connects, another Bluetooth enabled stylus. Much to our dismay, our Connects began to do stuff on each other’s screens! It’s kind of freaky… and VERY FRUSTRATING.. when your line erases because the artist near you just clicked “undo” on THEIR stylus. Yikes! So, to be honest, with this also being a Bluetooth device, I don’t know how well the Intuos is going to work “in the field”. I’ve got some upcoming live events I’ll be at though, so I’ll let you know. Still like I said yesterday in Part One, even with the Bluetooth and therefore Pressure Sensitivity off, the “bounce” to the tip and the overall feel of this stylus still makes it my favorite one I’ve used. And I think I have used them all!

Now, back to the blue light again. ( Did anyone else think of KMart when I said that? ADD! Squirrel! ) The paperwork that comes with this says that when the battery is getting low, the light turns red/orange. Hopefully I won’t know that for sure for awhile. The Intuos uses one AAAA battery. Don’t worry though, one of them is included in the case with the pen when you buy it:

Yes, I reused the same stock image that I used yesterday…. get over it. ;D

By the way, you are reading that correctly- that’s 4 “As”. I have no idea how much they cost when they run out and you have to purchase more.

WAITTT FOR IT…. ( googling )…..

Eh, when the stylus itself is basically $100, that’s not too bad. As long as it doesn’t go through them too often!

In closing, because most of you reading this are probably artists yourselves, I should probably show some more actual art I’ve done with this thing. Here’s a VERY quick drawing I did of my youngest the other night, as I was trying out the stylus:

Gotta love a kid who loves and laughs hysterically that you drew the “holes” from her missing teeth! Anyway, for this piece, I tried out a new version of Sketchbook called Sketchbook Ink. For my trial run with the app, and with the stylus ( this was actually the first piece I drew with it ), I figured it wasn’t too bad. You can already see some line variation. I switched over to ArtStudio, though ( the app I use the most), as I couldn’t find a good way to shade in this program, and I wanted my Custom brushes I’ve made in AS. But I DO like the “dynamic” brushes in Sketchbook Ink. If you haven’t tried it, you should!

Alright, that’s it for today. Thanks for reading. I gotta go draw some stuff…..

One of the cool things I get hired to do at events is to go out and actually draw the event. I do a large 18×24 black and white line drawing of the party, or whatever the event is, as it is proceeding. After drawing caricatures for 20+ years, I’m pretty quick at capturing likenesses, so I include any VIPs who need to be in the picture, and anyone else who stands out to me. ( I also usually hide myself in the drawings somewhere, when feasible). These samples are from a wedding I drew at:

This client paid for gray toned paper and shading on their drawing, which is an option I offer. I can also do these digitally, on the iPad, when preferred.

Hey, that guy’s hair on the left looks awfully familiar….

The Best Man’s toast! I love drawing groups of people, so this is a perfect fit for my talents. I’ll share a few more of these on my blog here in the upcoming days, as I locate the photos of them on my computer….

I’m not sure if it’s the upgrade to iOS7 or not, but for some reason this past week, ArtStudio on my iPad has been acting weird. Even basic tools like the Paint bucket have been working erratically. So, what do you do when the “normal” way you work doesn’t work anymore? Change the way you work! That’s what I had to do midway through a live digital caricaturing event I was performing at last week. I’ll see if I can find some of those pix and share them here. I went for a “rougher”, more natural tools looking style, instead of really smooth, slick brushes. I also colored on a lower layer, with a big brush rather than the aforementioned paint bucket, leaving some rim lighting within the lines. This is a drawing I did after the gig, of fellow caricaturist James Thomas, as I continued to play around in this new style. It kind of has a more illustrative quality, so I may keep doing stuff his way.